Search for Middletown Mother, Son Missing off Block Island Suspended

After six days of an exhausting effort to find two missing Connecticut boaters, the Coast Guard has suspended its search for them.

Rescuers were unable to locate 54-year-old Linda Carman and her son 22-year-old Nathan Carman, of Middletown, along with their 32-foot fishing boat. The pair was reported missing Sunday night when loved-ones didn’t hear back from them.

The Coast Guard searched an area near Block Island, a search that expanded through 62,000 square miles. The search expanded from the coast of Rhode Island to New York and as far as New Jersey.

“They’re good people and if they’re not home, they should be,” Said Sharon Hartstein who has been friends with Linda for over 20 years. She said Coast Guard officials came to her home today to tell her the news.

Hartstein said Linda let her know she would be leaving Ram’s Point Marina in Point Judith early Sunday morning and they were supposed to come back later that day.

She showed us the last text messages between her and Linda: “So she sent this email Friday, I mean text message, saying that they were going from ‘Rams Point around 1 [a.m. Sunday], back by 9 [a.m. Sunday]. Call me 12 noon if you don’t hear from me. Thanks for being there.’”

As the search is suspended for the pair, NBC Connecticut has learned, according to Windsor Police, Nathan is the grandson of John Chakalos, the 87-year-old man who was found dead in his home by a gunshot wound to the head back in December 2013. Linda is Chakalos’s daughter.

No arrests have been made in the case.

Before that, Nathan – who suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome -- was also the center of a 2011 investigation when he went missing and was found in Virginia.

Middletown Police also tell NBC Connecticut they have made several attempts this week to go to the home in hope of the Carmans’ returning.

While coast guard officials said they found a white cushion Thursday in Point Judith, where the pair left from, at this point they have not been able to determine whether it is connected to their boat.

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